Epic sagas from Indian cricket dressing room

Dressing room is one place where every cricket fan wants to be in to see the other side of the players he follows. Cricketers often involve in banters and play pranks in the dressing room but not every such incident is funny however. Check out the most fascinating tales of Indian cricket’s dressing room.

Indian coach fumed at Virender Sehwag and grabbed his collar. (Source: AFP)

Swashbuckling Virender Sehwag was a nightmare to many bowlers as he made a reputation of a destroyer. But his carefree attitude while batting at times gave ‘heart-attack’ to teammates and coaches. Coach John Wright in particular was concerned about Sehwag’s approach to batting.

During one of the games Sehwag played a loose shot very early in the innings and threw his wicket away. Wright issued an ultimatum, “If that guy gets out to one more bad shot, I’m going to really have a go at him.” As expected, Sehwag didn’t change his approach and gave away his wicket playing a silly shot. Furious coach grabbed his collar and confronted him.

When furious Tendulkar told Dravid to leave him alone. (Source: AFP)

Sachin Tendulkar broke many batting records during his career. But there were incidents when he missed a few by whiskers, due to poor decisions by team members. One such incident took place during the 2004 Multan Test when little master was 6 runs short of his double century, interim skipper Rahul Dravid declared the innings. Tendulkar was stunned, upset and angry with the decision and a dressing room drama seemed inevitable. But he restrained himself and just yelled at Dravid to “leave him alone”.

In 1987, before a high-profile India-Pakistan clash, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim walked inside the Indian dressing room. He offered the entire team a car each as a gift if they beat Pakistan in the encounter. But Haryana Hurricane, the then captain Kapil Dev, kicked him out saying, “Chal bahar chal”. (“Go get out”)

Virat Kohli was bullied on his first day in the dressing room. (Source: AFP)

No player can forget his/her first day in the dressing room as it’s a special and proud feeling. But Virat Kohli has more than one reason not to forget his first day. Seniors instructed Virat to touch Sachin Tendulkar’s feet on his first day as a tradition of the dressing room. Poor Virat went on to touch Tendulkar’s feet, when batting maestro told him that he’d been pranked.

MS Dhoni will always be known as one of the best Indian captains of all time. On 30th December 2014, during the third test between India and Australia, Dhoni decided to inform the team about his retirement from test cricket. In the dressing room, when he informed his retirement, all of a sudden the atmosphere became emotional. Once Dhoni finished his speech, the room was filled with a number of sore eyes.